'Umagine Chennai': TN to host largest tech summit in March ‘23

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu is all set to host Asia's largest summit on technology and innovation titled 'Umagine Chennai' from March 23 to 25, next year, in Chennai Trade Centre. The theme of the conference is "leave the future behind".

"The conference will be the doorstep for start-ups and entrepreneurs as they will get good connections. The conference will attract the attention of the entire world. Our Chief Minister, M K Stalin, has set the target of achieving a one trillion dollar economy by 2030 and we are expecting the export of software to reach 100 Billion dollar by 2030,” said Information Technology (IT) Minister T Mano Thangaraj, in a press conference.

The event will have seven focus areas such as green mobility, future of digital, agrinext, climate change and sustainability, healthcare and lifesciences, new frontiers and tech for good showcasing technologies such as artificial intelligence-machine learning, data sciences, blockchain, web3, cybersecurity, augmented reality-virtual reality and advance connectivity such as 5G/6G.

The event spanning three days will witness more than 100 sessions, more than 150 exhibitors, more than 250 speakers and more than 10,000 delegates.

France is the partner country for the event and for the first time 'Blue Ocean' awards will be given in India. Detailing about the award, Lise Talbot Barre, Consul General of France in Puducherry and Chennai, said that the award will be given to the winners of a pitching competition that will be evaluated by an international jury. The awards will be given in three categories such as 'Baby' for start-ups with investment of less than 2 million Euros, 'Mentor' for start-ups with investments of more than 2 million Euros and 'Societal' for start-ups creating a new market with positive impact on society.

Neeraj Mittal, Secretary of IT and Digital Services, said that information technology has is presence in almost all the fields and cited the use of a supercomputer named Alphafold which now predicts the exact folding pattern of proteins. He also said that school students will be taken to the conference on the third day to witness the future technologies.